Although I already called for alpha testers a week ago (thanks to all who joined using this link, I realized I never properly announced what steem.city actually is. The enthusiasm of starting a new project was a bit overwhelming and I focused a lot on development (both technical and customer development) but ignored the good ol' PR side of the things.
So, without further ado:
(Properly) Introducing Steem.City - Communities for Steemit
A community, in steem.city lingo, is a "neighborhood". That means you get a visual context for seeing all the posts and comments related to that community. What you post in your neighborhood will also be posted on steemit.com.
You can create up to 6 neighborhoods in the alpha stage and each neighborhood has a maximum of 50 members. These numbers are low because I still don't know how Steemit's split rewards API will cope. In theory, you can split rewards among an unlimited number of beneficiaries, although I didn't look in the code for that.
There are 3 types of neighborhoods: "Equal Split", "Sheriff 50%" and "Sheriff + Deputies". They are already described in a bit more detail in this post. But for the sake of having everything in one place, here's a brief description of each of them:
Equal Split
All citizens split the rewards equally, on all posts. Each citizen gets the same share from the entire revenue pool.
Sheriff 50%
Each citizen gets 50% and the rest is split equally among the other citizens. Each citizen gets 50% of his own rewards.
Sheriff + Deputies
Each author gets 30%, 3 deputies (moderators) get 10% each and the rest is split equally among the other citizens.
Other Steemit users can ask to be included in your neighborhood. If you accept them, they become "citizens" of your neighborhoods.
Citizen Rating
As each community will split the rewards in some way, the question of "but what if some citizens are lazy, or just freeloading?" is obviously raised. To solve this, steem.city introduces a citizen rating system. During alpha, we will start with the following metrics to define an active citizen:
- posted at least twice during the last 7 days
- upsteemed at least 7 times during the last 7 days
- commented at least 7 times during the last 7 days
If a citizen fails to comply with these requests he will be automatically eliminated from the neighborhood and he will have to ask permission to be included again. This model can be further refined to create some levels of rating (first class citizen, second class citizen) based on the feedback received during alpha stage.
User Interface Improvements
Steem.city will bring a number of UI improvements over the standard Steemit experience.
Medium-like Editor, with Markdown Output
Markdown is fine and I love it, but it may not be everybody's cup of tea. So I decided to integrate a WYSIWYG editor, which will output a Steemit compliant post body. You can see the first screenshots of this integration here (which, at the moment of writing, has image drag and drop uploading in testing).
Basic Theming
Each community will have a number of distinct visual elements, in an attempt to introduce basic theming. Don't think Wordpress-like theming, which will be overwhelming, but more reddit or tumbr-like theming. Here are a few screenshots form the latest development branch.
The Mandatory FAQ
1. What Problems Does Steem.City Solves?
Until now, the most complex form of aggregating towards a common goal in Steemit consisted in curation trails. While I appreciate this form of content consumption, I think it's limited. Steem.city brings it to the next level. Not only you will share interests and goals with a specific group of people, but you will also have a dedicated interface for that, a custom visual experience and a real tool for splitting the rewards for your activities.
2. How Steem.City Will Play With Steemit Announced Subcommunities?
I have no idea. The specs for subcommunities are not public, which means either they're not drafted yet, or are somehow concealed. If, during the alpha and beta stage of steem.city, this project will bring important business information that will shape this feature of Steemit, it means I did my job correctly.
3. How Steem.city Will Support Itself?
By using the same "splitting rewards" feature. There will be a certain percentage from all the posts generated in the platform, that will be allocated to development and maintenance costs. This is already a common approach in other apps, like chainBB, busy or eSteem.
4. When It Will Be Launched?
The tentative date is July 10th. At the current development speed, I'm confident we can have at least an MVP on July 10th.
5. How Can I Join The Alpha Testers Group?
By clicking this link. The alpha testers group will get early access (and the benefits of seeing the app crashing many, many times, obviously) but they will also get real revenue from posting from within the app, as citizens in one of the neighborhoods of their choice.
Looking forward to hear you comments, suggestions or critiques.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Maybe is not related but reminded me this morning of a game a use to play when I was student: SimsCity. I am looking forward to be part of it. Spor 😍
Very interesting concept for steem.city... looking forward for it....
ok, signing up. see what it's all about.
This sounds like something I'd like to try and be part of. Does a city necessarily have to have a theme or it just any group of people who gathered together for whatever reason? Right now I want to tell my friends about SteemIt and maybe if I told them about this project they might be interested in participating and collaborating.
that's it :)
SoundS FUN to ME !!!!!! - ))
LOVELOVELOVE )))
greb'Z )
.. PumpeD & reSTEEMed !! - ))
Same here PumpeD and reSTEEMED!!!
PleasE support .. this PosT - )))
https://steemit.com/payitforward/@fun-along-theway/social-experiment-easy-and-quick
.. i'm NOT accepting payment, its not FOR ME - )))
.. thanks for YOUr attention - )))
Will this be like a NextDoor App? It is what comes to mind when you describe this.
I don't know what NextDoor does, but briefly looking at it I see a bit of overlapping. Steem City makes "neighborhoods" more virtual, not really linked to geolocation, though. But given enough interest is manifested in this direction, it can be easily adjusted.
Thanks for the summary. I thought it was just an editor!
You're welcome, nope, the editor was just the entry point for me to be able to test it properly.
You may be interested in our implementation that is coming together:
https://github.com/steemit/hivemind
That said, it's great to see more people building this kind of stuff!
Thanks for pointing this out, @sneak, the name is a bit counterintuitive at first (so that's why probably didn't make me try it out while perusing the repositories), but then it makes sense. I'll try it out (starting with the specs) and see if there are any intersection points.
But as you said, the more, the merrier. Looking forward to play with it.
I've just joined up for a look around too 😁
Thanks :)
That sounds really exciting,i am definitely joining the neighbour hood.Thank you for sharing.On it now!!!!
Steemed up and resteemed, valuable information
At first glance I took it very literal assuming that this was going to be subgroups that categorize post by actual geographical neighborhoods in the real world. For instance post from New Yorkers from specific Neighborhoods like Harlem would have a Harlem "neighborhood" on Steemit.com which aggregated all posts originating in Harlem. I see I was totally off but intrigued still how that would play out were it to be the case.
I think actual neighborhoods would make for very good "neighborhoods" in this app. The content could include community improvement initiatives or project concepts. It might create an incentive for expressing requirements for various improvements and help develop them into viable realized projects.
Completely agree. As an appointed officer that represents a NYC district I would take full advantage of a tool like that.
One example community might be local students and professional mentors that who have a connection to your NYC district (for example, the students and mentors in the Greater New York City ACE Mentor Program of America Affiliate).
They could do a Built Environment Innovation Challenge a community project based learning experience, post their resulting project planning and development content in Steemit, earn Steem for their content, and potentially launch a collaborative built environment improvement project!
I tried to respond via that app and wasn't able. Still figuring this all out. Your idea sounds like an amazing idea. I'm actually on the Youth and Education Committee. Going to review the information about the Built the Environment Innovation Challenge. Appreciate you sharing this. Will respond with my thoughts.
You are right. As people get more and more invested in online activities, real world neighbors sometimes never even meet. Common geolocation tags might well facilitate real world neighbors meeting online, perhaps for the first time, and being able to touch base in the activities they are investing in, even if only online.
This is a great idea, and something the world needs.
Great comment. Being able to integrate geo-referenced content types into Steemit.City would be a great added value.
One example might be the geolocation of an area where a property owner has a requirement to convert an underutilized lot into a urban farm system(maybe assessing a proposed "container farm" system installation for example).
Cool dude. Interesting idea for sure!
Thanks, let's see what can grow from it.
interesting post
Just signed UP as tinashe looks amazing!! cant wait to learn more about it.
#SLACK
thanks for the post
This sound very interesting. I'm looking forward to check it out when it's released.
Cool lets get started 😉
Wow, this is an amazing idea. Thank you for posting. You picked up a new follower. I appreciate it.
Wow - can't believe I missed this the other day!! This is awesome! :) Just joined the #alpha slack channel :)
Sounds very interesting! :) I'll definitely give it a try!
I know it will be a success. Great idea.
Great news, looking forward to being part of the pilot
Thanks for posting this announcement & link to aplha testers group. -looking forward to July 10!
-intend to participate in the alpha testers group and ask for feedback on how to build communities that reward content from student & professional-mentor members of the Built Environment Innovation Cooperative (BEIC). The content would be developed as an integral part of project based learning activities known as Built Environment Innovation Challenges.
The content value streams I envision are in at least three associated "Communities" where professional-mentors and students (learning in 1. Owner, 2. Designer, and 3. Constructor roles) collaborate on planning and project development experiences.
There's number of other possible related communities where BEIC members collaboratively engage on complementary Open Source Software (OSS) tools and platforms such as Cesium, FreeCAD, BIMServer, and GannttProject, etc.
-questions, comments, critiques welcome.
This sounds very interesting! I would certainly have a look when you get the MVP out.
I am eager to see how this project turns out, and tunes in like-minded folks.
I had an observation: sometimes people go on vacation, or fall ill, or have to work overtime for an extended period. Given that participation in the community's output is a reasonable and functional metric for inclusion, I recommend some kind of at will suspension of reward sharing during such hiatus', or something along those lines.
Not trying to push for feature creep, just thinking of the real world and how sometimes our online world gets put on hold.
Thanks for your vision and hard work.
Will think about it, thanks for the feedback.